The Time Tunnel

The Time Tunnel concept is fabulous, and I would love to see a new series, but the 2002 un-aired pilot is the typical today's sci-fi, which focuses more on the proverbial arrogant, cocky characters and the "beating-around-the bush" storyline, with an overindulgence of bad humor. Too many of today's yuppie scriptwriters have no care nor understanding of quality writing and engaging characters. The Time Tunnel (2002) unaired pilot, unlike the original 1960s Irwin Allen series, has unlikeable, cold characters and horrendous acting. It does have an interesting storyline but is far less suspenseful than the original Time Tunnel series because this new version doesn't have Doug and Tony lost in time, but can return them to the tunnel at any time.

The un-aired pilot's best attribute is a nicely done war scene with incidental background music that challenges the emotions, and snow flurries that enhances the scenic setting landscape of war.

Overall, there is no comparison between the poorly produced Time Tunnel (2002) and the fabulous Time Tunnel TV series of 1966.

-- Ed Shifres

By some miracle I have managed to obtain a copy of this film. While it is rough around the edges, as most pilots are, it has alot of potential. With additional character development and some good stories written by strong writers this pilot could have evolved into a very good series had it been given the chance. While this film bears little resemblence to the Irwin Allen series of the 60s, other that the brief hint of the original theme at the beginning, this contemporary version is well worth a look to scifi and time travel fans. I enjoyed it very much and it's a nice addition to my video archives.

excellent, for a pilot. the characters are as fleshed out as they can be in 50 or so minutes, while still having time to explain the concept for the tunnel itself, which looks great. i found myself looking for lee meriwether or james darren in the background someplace. this is a superior reworking of the original 60's "time tunnel", except the characters return after completing each mission. the concept, a fix-the-errors-in-time-that-not-everyone-remembers scenario is somewhat more interesting than the original guys-bouncing-around-aimlessly plots that were used originally. i guess i can see why this probably wasn't picked up as a series. it would have been too closely compared to "stargate", which was a ripoff of sorts of the original. i still wish someone would start a network that shows nothing but unaired pilots. some of them are fascinating.

I had heard about this and thought "another bland update, no one will watch it, it'll stink." How wrong I was, this showed solid promise, with Tony being updated to a female lead named Toni, it was one pleasant surprise after another.

They kept key features like the long tunnel itself, while changing a few items such as the new "time storm" and the fact that only the staff of the tunnel experiment knew the world had changed.

This big thing that was missing that as a fan I would have liked would have been references to "project tic toc" but well acted, well thought out, and it would have been a fine continuation to the Time Tunnel family.

After reading the comments here on IMDb, I decided to track this pilot down. Hurray for file sharing!. The editing, direction and pacing of the pilot make SG1 look rather lethargic. The characterizations are really quite well developed for a pilot show. This really hits the ground running and doesn't let up until the end. The battle scene is really impressive for a TV show, the burning plane is a nice touch. There are a couple of minor things that could have been handled better, but it all flies by at such a pace that you really don't have time(excuse the pun) to dwell on it. Overall, this is one hell of a ride and a superior update to the 60's original. Kudos to the production company. I'm baffled as to why this wasn't picked up.